Fellow Tooner and Rock & Roll Rehab blog contributor, Buzz Brissette, recently wrote a blog post about his experience as a young keyboardist / song writer and playing with Lee Freeman of the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Growing up in Woodland Hills, CA, my next door neighbor was George Bunnell, the bass player for the Alarmclock. I thought of him recently when an episode of AMC’s Mad Men had Jaguar automobiles as a client of the show’s ad agency. Teenage George had a beautiful Jag XKE which spent most of the time up on blocks in the Bunnell’s driveway as George was away on tour with the band and I guess they didn’t want to pay to insure the car if it wasn’t being used.
Late one night I turned onto my street to go home and George in the Jag was right in front of me. He peeled up the hill screeching his tires all the way up. I followed him and arrived at my house a few seconds after he pulled into his driveway. When I walked in my door my mother was standing there super pissed off that I had sped up the hill. I explained to her that it wasn’t me but George, who then sheepishly waved and proved my story. I drove a Plymouth Duster which really couldn’t have made such a racket anyway.
My only other memories of living next door to a rock star was asking him for the sheet music to Incense and Peppermints, their big hit and getting from his mother an old envelope from the Electric Company which had a half dozen chords scribbled on it. I was hoping for an authentic arraignment but it wasn’t even autographed. Big disappointment.
There is something strangely funny about the name strawberry and rock and roll. George has said in an interview that their record company recommended they incorporate the word into their title as a way of associating themselves with the Beatles whose recent and first psychedelic hit was Strawberry Fields Forever. That song was named for a Salvation Army camp called Strawberry Fields where John Lennon attended dances as a kid. There is also an English Prog Rock band called The Stawbs which was short for strawberry.
There is probably more references to strawberries in rock than any other fruit, or even food. What is interesting is that the botanical genome project, the plant equivalent of the Human Genome Project discovered that Strawberries are closely related to the marijuana plant. Just a coincidence? I think not.
Growing up in Woodland Hills, CA, my next door neighbor was George Bunnell, the bass player for the Alarmclock. I thought of him recently when an episode of AMC’s Mad Men had Jaguar automobiles as a client of the show’s ad agency. Teenage George had a beautiful Jag XKE which spent most of the time up on blocks in the Bunnell’s driveway as George was away on tour with the band and I guess they didn’t want to pay to insure the car if it wasn’t being used.
Late one night I turned onto my street to go home and George in the Jag was right in front of me. He peeled up the hill screeching his tires all the way up. I followed him and arrived at my house a few seconds after he pulled into his driveway. When I walked in my door my mother was standing there super pissed off that I had sped up the hill. I explained to her that it wasn’t me but George, who then sheepishly waved and proved my story. I drove a Plymouth Duster which really couldn’t have made such a racket anyway.
My only other memories of living next door to a rock star was asking him for the sheet music to Incense and Peppermints, their big hit and getting from his mother an old envelope from the Electric Company which had a half dozen chords scribbled on it. I was hoping for an authentic arraignment but it wasn’t even autographed. Big disappointment.
There is something strangely funny about the name strawberry and rock and roll. George has said in an interview that their record company recommended they incorporate the word into their title as a way of associating themselves with the Beatles whose recent and first psychedelic hit was Strawberry Fields Forever. That song was named for a Salvation Army camp called Strawberry Fields where John Lennon attended dances as a kid. There is also an English Prog Rock band called The Stawbs which was short for strawberry.
There is probably more references to strawberries in rock than any other fruit, or even food. What is interesting is that the botanical genome project, the plant equivalent of the Human Genome Project discovered that Strawberries are closely related to the marijuana plant. Just a coincidence? I think not.
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